Vetoing : Take Out The Trash

You may be wondering how we plan shows. We have never come up with a formal process, but basically both Darren and I have total veto power.  Historically, it works as such. In a typical month, I come up with 20 ideas and Darren vetoes 18 of them. Darren comes up with 5 ideas and I veto 3 of them.  We both end up contributing 2 ideas. (NOTE: I have done no research on these figures and they are completely made up. I will send this to Darren before posting this, so he can provide alternate figures if he wishes)

Now, part of me thinks this is a bad process that could lead to complete paralysis and nothing happening, but in actuality it has worked out pretty great. If we tried to use every idea, the show would be constantly changing and never become something solid like our Themes Show.  There is definitely a part of me that likes the idea of having a constantly changing show, but I can see how what we have now is better.  Now to be clear, I am not complaining about Darren vetoing 90% of my ideas. If anything, I think we need more vetoing.  I legitimately think it is a cool process and decided to write about it this month since I had the word veto scribbled down in my list of possible blog ideas. Recently however I have noticed two possible flaws in this process. 

Problem 1: Later, The Third Option

This one may or may not be my fault.  Obviously it is not fun to get your ideas vetoed, so naturally I started to re-frame ideas as to not get vetoed. A few years ago, I started pitching ideas to work towards instead for the current show. Suddenly, there was a third choice, instead of just "yes" or "no", now there was "later".  While getting a later seems better than getting a no, I am starting to have my doubts.  Three years ago I came up with a Bye Bye Bye routine.(If you need proof here is a video of me practicing it in 2010) Now we have worked on this routine off and on for the past three years, but it has never been done in front of an audience and there are no plans to do it in front of an audience in the near future. The song doesn't fit our typical shows. The style of juggling clashes with Darren style of juggling. Yet it is still un-vetoed.  It is going to be tough to veto it after three years of practice. I honestly don't even know if we should at this point, but if i could go back in time 3 years and veto it back then, I would do that.  

Problem 2: Endurance, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no again 

Recently we started on a new endeavor, and suddenly the roles have switched. Now for reasons I don't completely understand Darren is bringing lots of of ideas to the table, and i have to figure how many to veto. The number one thing I have figured out about this so far is that while getting your ideas vetoed is not fun, having to veto ideas is less fun. Basically I have a new found respect for Darren's ability to veto such a large amount of ideas. I don't know if I will be able to veto 18 ideas a month, but I am going to try to step my veto game up (ideally this includes self vetoing). Don't worry about this too much Darren, this is all probably just me rambling and nothing much will change.

One last point: In December I need to remember to post the outline for the Christmas show Darren vetoed, it is completely ridiculous and involved a Frankenstein themed  juggling routine.